Do you use lens hoods with round and square filters?

<p>Just curious about this. Various companies have hoods that you can use with filters such as Lee, and Cokin. I have not bothered yet. Do you guys use them? </p>

<p>With round filters I guess you can stick your pinky finger in and adjust it with the lens hood attached or take the hood off, adjust the filter and pop the hood back. Then again what about square filters such as grad filters and many landscapes are taken with a wide angle lens so you may end up with vignetting if these other hoods are used. </p>

<p>Like to know your thoughts.</p>

<p>I rarely use lens hoods at all, and even more rarely with a grad or other square type filter fitted. </p>

<p>There's no room for hoods in my bag, so hoods are normally in my car or rental and stay there unless I anticipate that I'll have a serious need for them. Meantime over the years I've become adept at improvised shading for the lens- to prevent light striking the front element. I seem to get very little flare. </p>

<p>The time I use hoods most is when its raining- I have one of those plastic rain covers but they're a pain to put on and take off. I did try to grip this issue about a decade about when I bought a set of folding bellows for my Bronica MF. What a pain that was- can't recall ever using it in anger. </p>

<p>I see no need to use square filters with digital cameras. The optical quality of such filters, usually plastic, is questionable. This limits their utility to split graduated filters for balancing sky and foreground. It is far easier to take multiple exposures and combine them using HDR software than to carry and adjust specialized filters.</p>

<p>That said, I do use lens hoods when available. For medium format, I use a so-called "compendium" hood, which is an adjustable bellows which attaches to the lens. It tilts down to make adjustments to a polarizing filter easy. Fixed hoods for MF lenses are large, so a compendium hood takes less space in the bag.</p>

<p>I use all of my small format lenses with rigid hoods, which can be reversed for storage in the bag. Hoods improve contrast by shielding the lens from light outside the field of view. They also serve to protect the lens from physical damage. Sometimes I can adjust a polarizer reaching inside the hood with a finger, but mostly I remove the hood for that purpose.</p>

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<p>Hoods improve contrast by shielding the lens from light outside the field of view. They also serve to protect the lens from physical damage.</p>

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<p>+1<br>

I use lens hoods ALL THE TIME, whenever possible. They protect the front element and reduce the chance of image-degrading flare.</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

<p>I've never had any problem with the <strong><em>optical</em></strong> quality of brands like Hitech, Lee. Using these filters has never screwed up my pictures. Have they screwed up yours Edward? Or is this just a vaguely theoretical possibility?<br>

How long does it take you per image to combine your various shots and process them into one that you're comfortable with? </p>

<p>I do landscape shooting from a tripod about 95% of the time. If I need to block the sunlight, I have a nice, big hat that really works well.</p>

<p>On the other hand, shooting handheld, especially in public, almost always requires a hood for lens protection.</p>

<p>@Dave<br>

Look at a plastic filter between two polarizers and tell me if the strain patterns thus revealed inspire confidence in their optical quality. The best glass filters are sawn from a slab, ground parallel and polished. Plastic filters are cast, hoping for the best. In fact, I don't use glass filters, including polarizers, unless absolutely necessary. Whether you can see the difference is a matter of the quality of your equipment and how carefully you look.</p>

<p>Most square filter holders leak a lot of light around the edges, which affects contrast. The effect of a split grad filter resembles, to my eye, a typical day of smog in Los Angeles, with a layer of "pollution" lingering above the horizon. HDR compositions conform to an irregular skyline, producing a more natural effect if not overdone.</p>

<p>Focus stacking software works quickly enough, comparable to HDR exposure stacking. It does take a bit of time and care to change the focus point without disturbing the camera. The software can handle misalignment between frames, at the expense of a reduction in useable area through cropping. Of more concern is the manner in which most internally focusing lenses operate, by altering the effective focal length, producing a change in FOV known as "breathing." That effect is negligible at landscape distances, but significant for closeups.</p>

<p>For landscapes, it is usually sufficient to use two or three focus points, for distant and nearby objects, occasionally for something in between. For closeups I use a threaded or geared focusing rail, in increments depending on the DOF and subject matter, for a dozen or more shots.</p>

<p>Edward</p>

<p>Whilst appreciating the fact of your reply, I think I disagree with all that you've written. I don't believe that a single clean filter , whether plastic ( actually CR39 optical resin, as is used in spectacles) or glass degrades an image to any meaningful degree. Neither do I believe they reduce contrast. The only issue I have with grads is that sometimes I have to send them back because they aren't neutral. That gets tested before they're used in anger.</p>

<p>And looking at the thousands of photographs I've taken with ND grads applied, I don't think they look like a smog layer, and its very rare indeed that I can see a line where the graduated effect starts. Sure if you're using the wrong filter, or you haven't worked out how to position the filter properly-- but that's just like everything else in the bag- use it right to get the most out of it. I mean seriously, given the masses of high-end landscapers that both use square filters and particularly grads , you're not going to get a whole lot of support for an argument that essentially says they're rubbish.</p>

<p>But of course this approaches the root of the issue- you're not actually a landscape photographer, are you? You seem to take a technical perspective on a lot of things, but you're not out there making landscapes that often if the images you share with others are anything to go by. Sure you take outdoor pictures but they seem to be orientated more towards testing equipment than taken for their own sakes. If you were out there taking landscapes in volume, you'd appreciate that its a whole lot faster to set up with a grad than adding at least a few minutes to the post processing of a lot of shots. On a good day for me I'll probably use ND grads on 50 shots. The incremental set up time is well under a minute, vs what- maybe an extra 5-8 minutes per shot if I add a HDR/focus stack process to each meaningful image. That's hours more behind a computer for every day I'm shooting landscape. And I don't accept that there's any advantage in doing things your way for well over 90% of the photographs I make-and specific circumstances in which merges are less appropriate. </p>

<p>I can take bracketed exposures automatically, using the continuous shutter option on the camera. With a Sony A7Rii, using in-camera image stabilization, I don't even need to use a tripod. HDR processing is completely automated using Lightroom and Photomatix software.</p>

<p>I have a set of split grad filters and a holder, but I've only used it with a relatively low resolution Nikon (12 MP) or MF film, neither of which are as demanding as a 24+ MP mirrorless camera and lenses to match.</p>

<p>I am not a "landscape photograph" in the sense it provides me a living, but it gives me pleasure. I have made a long career (and living) of solving problems for myself and others. If my posts are technical in nature, it is because that fits threads of this sort, where people are looking for answers.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17865958-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="452" /></p>

<p>Using the continuous shutter, it takes a little over one second to shot a 5 to 7 frame bracketed exposure. Bracketing is fully automatic on my Nikon F3, Leica M9 and Sony A7xx cameras. Even with a fully manual Hasselblad, it takes nothing close to 6-8 minutes to complete the process. I haven't made use of HDR combined with focus stacking, but I use it frequently for stitched panoramas. I render the HDR image first, then stitch the results for efficiency.</p>

<p>The HDR effect can range from innocuous to surreal, even from the same starting material. It all depends on the subject and my mood. My mood in this Japanese garden tends to be more meditative, so "surreal" seemed appropriate.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18230053-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="453" /></p>